


Worse Sins

by grlnamedlucifer



Category: Robin Hood (TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-01
Updated: 2007-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-31 16:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grlnamedlucifer/pseuds/grlnamedlucifer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They are outlaws, each of them, and to expect less of them is to be proved a fool."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worse Sins

These English disgust her. These men who shirk from imaginary diseases, who withhold water out of fear, who call her stupid when it is they who are ignorant, who make foolishly complicated plans to free them when all it would take would be to open the door. She sees nothing worthy of even what little respect she held for those she fought against in the war in these men. But if this Robin is right, her cooperation will save more of her people from her fate, and even this indignity can be borne a little longer to spare them that.

It does not, however, stop her from spitting at this loud and unpleasant man’s feet.

There is, after all, only so much insult Djaq will take in one day.

~*~

Djaq invites herself to stay for she does not believe her pride would have let her if they had asked, and there is nowhere else for her now. Once her fellow former slaves found out she was not a man, all camaraderie gained from shared misery would be gone. She would have been cast out, or worse, and alone in this land that is not her home.

She will not let herself wonder what she would have done had they said no.

~*~

Words of her brother spill from her mouth unbidden, but she does not regret them. She will not have Allan think he is alone with the brother-sized hole in his heart that she knows will never go away. More than that, she has a fear that once he remembers his earlier words of what his brother deserved, Allan will do more than regret them.

She refuses to feel guilty for the relief she feels at the distraction the necklace provides.

When it is Allan’s turn at nightmares this night, she is there to hold him through them, and pretends she does not feel Will’s eyes upon them both.

~*~

Robin did not come to rescue her and the part of her that is still (always) Safiya wants to cry. Wants to, but does not, because even when she was Safiya, Safiya was never that weak. Wants to, but does not, because Djaq whispers in her head and calls her fool for trusting these English.

Wants to, but does not, because Robin did not come, but she does not need him in order to rescue herself.

~*~

The Prince offers her transport back to the Holy Lands - payment, he claims, for her part in rescuing him from the Sheriff, from his would-be assassins, from Robin. A way home that Djaq almost would accept did it not come with the price of a broken family, a ghost that bears the name she now claims, and a war that neither side seems to wish to continue. So she declines and bows and ignores Robin’s grumblings.

Later, she wonders whether she will live long enough to regret her choice.

~*~

There is no abundance of privacy in the forest, yet not once do the men interrupt her prayers, a fact she is surprised yet grateful for. She is more surprised still when she catches the source of that privacy leaning against a nearby tree one day. Little John, as quick as the others to call her science witchcraft, her medicine the devil, shrugs when asked and says "Wouldn't want those lads interrupting a chat with mine, now, would I?" and Djaq smiles.

When she prays again, she begs Allah’s forgiveness for thinking ignorant opinions a crime only the English commit.

~*~

They dare her everything from renouncing her god to wearing a dress and she responds the same way each time, so when Allan dares her to kiss Will one night when they have all had too much wine, she responds like always and is little surprised when Allan follows through. She will claim it only good manners to therefore hold up her end of the bargain and kiss him as well.

She has no similar excuse for what happens after that.

~*~

A stick in Little John's hands is death or kindling and an axe in Will's a tool or weapon and she does not understand what should make this black powder so different. Closing one's eyes does not change the fact that the sun exists and burning a book does not destroy the fact that the knowledge within it exists, no matter how they wish to pretend it differently.

When weighed against that knowledge, one man’s wish makes little difference to Djaq.

~*~

Marian's blood does not come off Djaq’s hands, no matter how much she scrubs at them. She has failed Robin and now it would seem that Robin asks them to kill. So she takes up her sword and runs to meet her enemy, for she has failed Robin once today and she refuses to do so a second time.

What difference does more blood on her hands make?

~*~

She finds them together, apart from the others, as she assumed they would be. That they had planned to take their share and run is not far off in the minds of the others and, though none has said, the trust must be re-earned.

Djaq has no such misgivings and little surprise at their actions. Allan is more like his brother than he cares to admit and Will more eager to follow his lead than she thinks even he knows. She begrudges them nothing, can hardly begin to when the sack she carries is heavy with a stolen ledger.

They are outlaws, each of them, and to expect less of them is to be proved a fool.

~*~

Djaq did not expect the Lady Marian to be so brave, nor did she expect to like her as she finds herself doing. Her shorn hair a punishment where Djaq's was freedom, her fighting in the night a game she could play at while it was their lives. But Djaq herself saw what cost that game could bring, saw how the Lady Marian grit her teeth and bore Djaq’s untrained hands digging beneath her skin, saw her fight her way back from the death Djaq could not rescue her from.

None of them are surprised when Marian joins them in the forest, her actions at her would-be wedding too public for even Gisborne's word to grant her leniency were he still willing to give it.

So when the Lady Marian stands before them, waiting on their approval and not Robin’s goodwill, Djaq is the first to offer her welcome.

~*~

She does not know how the Sheriff knows or whether he even does, but when he presses a knife against her throat and slips the noose around Will and Allan's necks and laughingly asks her to choose, she closes her eyes and prays to Allah.

When Robin's arrow fires and frees them both, Djaq takes it as a sign.

~*~

The Lady Marian asks her one day to guard for her while she bathes, and Djaq smirks at her reason for it. "There are only so many things I can tolerate and having these men continue to… accidentally spy on me while I attempt to bathe is certainly not one of them." It does explain why Will's face had been so red last night, though Djaq doubts the grin on Allan's had anything accidental to do with it. "And who is to say that I do not wish to... accidentally spy as well?" Djaq asks because she is Djaq and she can and she laughs as Marian turns and walks off in a huff.

Her question of whether anyone could blush brighter than Will has certainly been more than answered.

~*~

Djaq sleeps with her head on Allan's shoulder and Will's arm across her waist and the Sheriff’s voice in her ear with mocking words of long, cold nights. But she will not be shamed by words nor let the Sheriff rule her life when she is one of Robin's Men.

And she has far worse sins than where she sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to skillfulway for beta'ing.


End file.
